Santa Fe, New Mexico painter Bill Berra finds the inspiration for his painting from the Macchiaioli group of 19th century Italian painters, Frederick Church's small studies, Victor Higgin's small gems, French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Oriental art.

The self-taught plein-aire painter has been painting his whole life. Born in 1952, Berra was raised in York, Pennsylvania. After only a year at the Maryland Institute of Art, Berra he left the school in 1972 because he did not fit in with the abstract expressionist movement, which was popular at the time. The artist continued to paint the scenery of the Mid-Atlantic States. In 1976 he headed West and found himself in Santa Fe where he has lived ever since.

Berra, who prefers to work in oils, completes all of his paintings in one sitting. He paints architecture, landscapes, figures and still life.

Source: Art-Talk, August/September 2002

William Berra was born in York, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children. His intense interest in art began in grade school and continued to grow through his years in high school. Rather than merely following the usual courses of study at the public high school, Berra was fortunate enough to attend the York Academy his junior and senior years. He then pursued further education at the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts in Baltimore, where he experimented briefly with abstract expressionism and non-objective painting. But he discontinued this direction of study at the Institute to follow a path of his own choosing, working in a more traditional manner and en plein air. Berra prides himself on being self-taught and takes satisfaction in having cultivated his own style of painting.

Berra is deeply inspired by his surroundings and enjoys painting on location both in northern New Mexico, where he resides, and abroad. When he paints, Berra begins by visualizing the composition. As the work evolves, it becomes a synthesis of visual stimuli, memory and experience. He likes to stretch the spacial boundaries of his skies with both subtle and acute rendering of clouds, color, and light. Many of his recent works are painted on gold leaf-covered panels. The luminosity of metal showing through the brushwork imparts a deep, rich glow to these pieces.

The greatest influence on Berra's approach to painting is the work of the Macchiaioli, a group of 19th century Italian painters. While the Macchiaioli held many of the same concepts as did the French impressionists, they were not as scientific in their approach to painting.

Berra's paintings have been exhibited extensively in the United States and are represented in private and public collections around the world, including those in Taiwan, Spain, and the U.S. State Department.

For landscape impressionist William Berra, the outdoors is his studio. Berra is a wanderer of fields and arroyos, mountains and streams - the unknown and often secret corners.

He grew up in the rolling, fertile farmlands of Pennsylvania Dutch country in south central Pennsylvania. As a youth, he found it difficult to concentrate on traditional school curriculum, and he decided to become an artist. He enrolled in the Maryland Institute in Baltimore, a small and prestigious art school affiliated with the famous Rhode Island School of Design. After learning the basic artistic skills, he realized that to expand his talents he had to get out and paint.

Berra explains that he will take pains to find the right scene the right location, the proper vista from which he can see a special corner of the world, and then do several "quick studies." The repetition is never boring, he says but allows him to realize and then capture the essence of the scene. "I usually will do two or three quick studies on any scene. By the time I do the third one, I have a real good feel for the image, " he explains. "It's a matter of living in the area and getting to know it."

But quick studies, often done on small pieces of board, not larger than 8 x 12 inches, are not throw aways. He keeps them all and frames them. "I consider them finished works," he says.

The technique, he explains, comes from the school of painting to which he is most drawn and which he has studied and practiced most of his artistic life. It is the Macchiolli school of Impressionism, which was developed in Italy about the same time the famous Dutch and French Impressionists were working in northern Europe, late 1800s and early 1900s. The theory is simply, "going out and painting nature," Berra says.